I could go into how I wound up feeling that the ending felt necessary, but it would be long and convoluted and off-topic. (There were also continuity issues that required an ending like that. Mmph.)

I think the less gut-punching ending was the one they did first and then decided wasn't going to work with the intended theme of the story they were telling, which was essentially spun from the (subsequent-in-time-but-this-theme) line "many bothans died to get us this information."

(I'd love to see the original cut, though.)